Tips for Writing Strong Fulbright Essays for the Graduate Student and Faculty Development Programs

1. Tips for Writing Strong Fulbright Essaysfor theGraduate Student and Faculty Development Programs Dr. Kate Mastruserio Reynolds reynolkm@uwec.edu Myron O. Stachiw Director, Fulbright Program in Ukraine mstachiw@fulbright.com.uamyron.stachiw@gmail.com

2. What is a Fulbright Grant? An opportunity to live and study in a foreign land and culture (U.S.)

3. What is a Fulbright Grant? An opportunity to live and study in a foreign land and culture (U.S.) An opportunity to represent your country of origin and its educational system to others

4. What is a Fulbright Grant? An opportunity to live and study in a foreign land and culture (U.S.) An opportunity to represent your country of origin and its educational system to others An opportunity to study a subject or topic deeply without achieving a higher academic degree

5. What is a Fulbright Grant? An opportunity to live and study in a foreign land and culture (U.S.) An opportunity to represent your country of origin and its educational system to others An opportunity to study a subject or topic deeply without achieving a higher academic degree An academic scholarship to study in a U.S. university to receive a Masters Degree or Ph.D.

6. The Application • The act of entering into the competition for a Fulbright scholarship grant

7. The Application • The act of entering into the competition for a Fulbright scholarship grant • A formal statement and presentation of: • Personal data home and current address, date of birth, current status as student or employee, accomplishments, publications, fellowships; family information; past experiences overseas, etc.

8. The Application • An act of entering into the competition for a Fulbright scholarship grant • A formal statement and presentation of: • Personal data home and current address, date of birth, current status as student or employee, accomplishments, publications, fellowships; family information; past experiences overseas, etc. • Academic qualifications schools attended – when, where, fields and degrees; copies of transcripts and diplomas; letters of recommendation from your professors, advisers, employers; language proficiency, etc.

9. The Application • Statement of Study Research Objectives Your proposed course of study; why it is important to you and to the larger discipline in Ukraine and beyond; why you need to go to the U.S. to conduct this research or to advance your education; how you will apply this new knowledge in your career and to colleagues/students in Ukraine.

10. The Application • Statement of Study Research Objectives Your proposed course of study; why it is important to you and to the larger discipline in Ukraine and beyond; why you need to go to the U.S. to conduct this research or to advance your education; how you will apply this new knowledge in your career and to colleagues/students in Ukraine. • Personal Statement A discussion of who you really are; what has motivated you in life and to now apply for the Fulbright program; what do you hope to be and why.

11. The Application • RECOMMENDATION Get involved in extracurricular activities in order to demonstrate your difference and potential. Keep a running list of all of your activities, employment, and accomplishments. Reviewers want to see a strong, long-term track record of involvement and a well-rounded, well-adjusted person who thinks not only about him/herself and his/her studies, but also about others and about issues in the society and culture around you. If you are involved in activities with professors and community leaders, these are future recommendation letter writers!

12. Essay Writing Overview • Make the best possible case for yourself. Be convincing. Explain clearly and succinctly why you deserve to receive a Fulbright award over someone else. Share realistic and doable goals for learning while on the scholarship; indicate what you are going to do with your new knowledge/degree . Indicate how you intend to share your experiences with others when you return home from abroad.

13. Essay Writing Overview • Make the best possible case for yourself. Be convincing. Explain clearly and succinctly why you deserve to receive a Fulbright award over someone else. Share realistic and doable goals for learning while on the scholarship; indicate what you are going to do with your new knowledge/degree . Indicate how you intend to share your experiences with others when you return home from abroad. • State outright how you meet the eligibility criteria; reviewers are reading quickly to check off on a checklist if you meet all of the criteria. Make it easy for them to see that you do meet them.

14. Essay Writing Overview • When writing do not be self-critical; but do not boast or promote yourself immodestly. Do not make false statements, fabrications, or exaggerate accomplishments. You are not selling some new product, but you are trying to convince the reviewers that you are ready for the U.S. educational experience.

15. Essay Writing Overview • When writing do not be self-critical; but do not boast or promote yourself immodestly. Do not make false statements, fabrications, or exaggerate accomplishments. You are not selling some new product, but you are trying to convince the reviewers that you are ready for the U.S. educational experience. • Be unique, outstanding and different in your writing, but not weird.

16. Essay Writing Overview • When writing do not be self-critical; but do not boast or promote yourself immodestly. Do not make false statements, fabrications, or exaggerate accomplishments. You are not selling some new product, but you are trying to convince the reviewers that you are ready for the U.S. educational experience. • Be unique, outstanding and different in your writing, but not weird. • Definitely use your most formal academic writing. Make it well written with no errors!

17. Essay Writing Overview • Do not plagiarize . Use proper methods of citation. If you quote another author, give them proper credit. It is important to show reviewers that you know how to properly cite other authors and works.

18. Essay Writing Overview • Do not plagiarize . Use proper methods of citation. If you quote another author, give them proper credit. It is important to show reviewers that you know how to properly cite other authors and works. • Do not purchase your essay.

19. Essay Writing Overview • Do not plagiarize . Use proper methods of citation. If you quote another author, give them proper credit. It is important to show reviewers that you know how to properly cite other authors and works. • Do not purchase your essay. • Plan and work ahead in order to give yourself time to think, write and revise, and also to allow time to receive quality feedback. Work as far as possible in advance of the deadline. Do not wait until the last minute!! Your essay will show it.

20. Essay Writing Overview • Ask friends, colleagues, advisers to proofread and review your writing with a critical eye. You want someone who knows grammar, punctuation, and other elements of good writing to carefully read your essays. Have more than one person read your essays. Revise, revise, revise.

21. Essay Writing Overview • Ask friends, colleagues, advisers to proofread and review your writing with a critical eye. You want someone who knows grammar, punctuation, and other elements of good writing to carefully read your essays. Have more than one person read your essays. Revise, revise, revise. • Because the competition for Fulbright scholarships is stiff, reviewers are looking for any reason to disqualify candidates and shorten the list. You may be disqualified if you skip even a simple question.

22. Essay Writing Overview • If rejected (and you will be from time to time), seek feedback about why your application was not accepted. Many agencies are willing (and allowed) to give you reasons why your application was not accepted; other agencies are not allowed or do not keep the records. Simply ask if they can and are allowed to do so. Gather the feedback in a polite, non-personal manner. Use the feedback constructively; strive to incorporate feedback into your future applications. Don't let the rejection get to you personally. Persevere.

23. Writing a Personal Statement • Personal Statement… • serves as a record of all the things you have done that would qualify you for a Fulbright fellowship, • describes your professional development path (how you got to where you are professionally) • should include mention of how studying in the U.S. will help you achieve your professional and scholarly goals.

24. Writing a Personal Statement • Personal Statement… • serves as a record of all the things you have done that would qualify you for a Fulbright fellowship, • describes your professional development path (how you got to where you are professionally) • should include mention of how studying in the U.S. will help you achieve your professional and scholarly goals. • It is NOT a traditional vita (a list of your accomplishments and educational background), but rather it is an essay.

25. Writing a Personal Statement • Personal Statement… • serves as a record of all the things you have done that would qualify you for a Fulbright fellowship, • describes your professional development path (how you got to where you are professionally) • should include mention of how studying in the U.S. will help you achieve your professional and scholarly goals. • It is NOT a traditional vita (a list of your accomplishments and educational background), but rather it is an essay. • It might be best written on a four section model.

26. Writing a Personal Statement • Section One: Your Educational Objectives • This is probably the most difficult, and in some ways, the most important part of your narrative vita; you can only really begin to answer this question after you have fully worked out your statement of purpose.

27. Writing a Personal Statement • Section One: Your Educational Objectives • This is probably the most difficult, and in some ways, the most important part of your narrative vita; you can only really begin to answer this question after you have fully worked out your statement of purpose. • Do not hesitate to ask those you work with who are senior in your field for help and advice. They will likely have a richer sense than you of how your project, and your larger interests, will fit into the larger frame of your discipline, and might be able to help you articulate this as clearly as possible.

28. Writing a Personal Statement • Section One: Your Educational Objectives • This is probably the most difficult, and in some ways, the most important part of your narrative vita; you can only really begin to answer this question after you have fully worked out your statement of purpose. • Do not hesitate to ask those you work with who are senior in your field for help and advice. They will likely have a richer sense than you of how your project, and your larger interests, will fit into the larger frame of your discipline, and might be able to help you articulate this as clearly as possible. • This is to be a short paragraph, likely no more than three sentences; make them count.

29. Writing a Personal Statement • Section One: Your Educational Objectives • Present your educational objectives in clear, concise, and theoretical terms.

30. Writing a Personal Statement • Section One: Your Educational Objectives • Present your educational objectives in clear, concise, and theoretical terms. • Be clear with terminology, spell it out for laypeople as clearly and specifically as you can.

31. Writing a Personal Statement • Section One: Your Educational Objectives • Present your educational objectives in clear, concise, and theoretical terms. • Be clear with terminology, spell it out for laypeople as clearly and specifically as you can. • Avoid restating the basic goals of your profession. Explain briefly and succinctly how your work is placed within the field.

32. Writing a Personal Statement • Section One: Your Educational Objectives • Present your educational objectives in clear, concise, and theoretical terms. • Be clear with terminology, spell it out for laypeople as clearly and specifically as you can. • Avoid restating the basic goals of your profession. Explain briefly and succinctly how your work is placed within the field. • For example, if your work is in agriculture and you work with specific crops and soils, you should write specifically how your goal is to improve the field of agriculture through a study of the particular soils and needs of those crops which are best suited to their native soils.

33. Writing a Personal Statement • Section One: Your Educational Objectives • Psychology example: • The main reason I spent the whole year in the libraries to get prepared for the new competition in the Fulbright Program is that I really want to win a contest and get a profound education in the country that is nowadays the leader in my field – Organizational Psychology. My life goal is to establish a school of Organizational Psychology in Ukraine, a school where specialists from our country will have an opportunity to exchange their experience with the foreign specialists from the USA, Australia, and Europe.

34. Writing a Personal Statement • Section One: Your Educational Objectives • Law example: • My educational objectives in the United State are linked to my academic work and teaching at a law school in the future, as well as to further work in NGOs as a legal expert. After returning from the US I intend to continue my academic work on human rights protection issues, in particular on shaping relations between the state and civic society based on democratic principles. The topic I have chosen as my study objective deals with one aspect of such relations - public access to official information.

35. Writing a Personal Statement • Section One: Your Educational Objectives • Law example: • I hope to learn more about the legal mechanisms providing the right of access to official information in the United States of America in order to better understand how they work and make suggestions how to improve relevant legislation in Ukraine.

36. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Two: Your Education/Personal Path • The idea in section two is to show your development as a scholar, and to begin to create a story of your professional life to which the Fulbright grant would seem as some sort of culmination, even if only a temporary peak.

37. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Two: Your Education/Personal Path • The idea in section two is to show your development as a scholar, and to begin to create a story of your professional life to which the Fulbright grant would seem as some sort of culmination, even if only a temporary peak. • This section is a narrative, thus easier to write. It will likely be the longest paragraph in the essay, or at least as long as the one that follows.

38. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Two: Your Education/Personal Path • The idea in section two is to show your development as a scholar, and to begin to create a story of your professional life to which the Fulbright grant would seem as some sort of culmination, even if only a temporary peak. • This section is a narrative, thus easier to write. It will likely be the longest paragraph in the essay, or at least as long as the one that follows. • Tell your professional development story. Explain here, at as much length as you feel comfortable, about how your educational and personal experiences helped you arrive at the particular interests and scholarly objectives you have outlined in the preceding section.

39. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Two: Your Education/Personal Path • What made you choose this field? How did you start in the field?

40. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Two: Your Education/Personal Path • What made you choose this field? How did you start in the field? • What were the major milestones that you have encountered along the way?

41. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Two: Your Education/Personal Path • What made you choose this field? How did you start in the field? • What were the major milestones that you have encountered along the way? • What were your accomplishments (note here those awards won, papers delivered, and conferences attended, etc, which you think might make you look better in the eyes of the review panel)?

42. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Two: Your Education/Personal Path • Were there mentors or influences in your academic/professional life who steered you? If so, mention how they influenced you.

43. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Two: Your Education/Personal Path • Were there mentors or influences in your academic/professional life who steered you? If so, mention how they influenced you. • Create the impression that the Fulbright award is inevitable, not a gift, and the readers of your application will tend to agree with you. Instead of making it seem like a big leap for you to go and study overseas, make it seem like a natural step in your education and scholarly development, and something which the Fulbright Committee can do for you.

44. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Two: Your Education/Personal Path • Psychology example: • Since last year, when I applied for the Fulbright for the first time, I have already started my career in Organizational Psychology. At present I work as a Junior Recruitment Consultant in the leading Ukrainian Recruitment Company “Brain Source International”. Recruitment is an essential part of Organizational Psychology and it provides me with valuable experience in the sphere of personnel selection. What concerns my background in 2003 I graduated from Kyiv National Linguistic University and got Master’s Degree in Psychology. While writing my graduate paper I immersed myself into the investigation of Prisoner’s Dilemma. It is one of the most interesting problems in Social Psychology but I think its solution will contribute greatly to the development of Organizational Psychology as well. And since the object under investigation was extremely interesting – person’s preference to individualistic or collectivistic way of behavior in the situation of choice – my reports in the conferences (Kyiv, Moscow, Saint-Petersburg) and thesis publications have always been widely discussed. In the International Conference that took place in Moscow State University I was deservedly honored with the Diploma of a prize-winner. However, despite the fact that I have read many works concerning the subject of investigation, I could not reach plenty of them just because they cannot be found in National Scientific Library and mainly they are not published in Internet. And this is one of the reasons why I apply for the studying in the USA – since this country is a leader in the investigation of group phenomena, its universities provide vast literature resources; and it is my deep belief that to become an expert in any sphere one needs profound theoretical base.

45. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Two: Your Education/Personal Path • Law example: • My interest in human rights protection developed as a student at the Khmelnytsky Regional Lyceum, where law was my major. My teacher of the history of law, in his lectures, consistently emphasized the importance of human rights protection, provided in the Constitution of Ukraine, for the development of civic society, a necessary attribute of a democratic state. My interest in the subject strengthened in the course of my studies at the National Law Academy. In the first-year course covering operation of judicial and law enforcement bodies, a lecturer spoke about the use of case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) by Ukrainian courts. I came to an understanding that the subject of human rights is not a purely theoretical and abstract matter, but a real-life issue, and that there are workable legal tools how to practically solve human rights violations, legal tools, which can be used in our national court system. I studied the legal nature of the European Court case law and tried to analyze the applicability of ECHR approaches to the Ukrainian legal system in my second-year term paper. • In order to find more material for my paper, my research adviser suggested that I go to the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KhPG), a leading Ukrainian NGO dealing with these issues and offering free access to their rich library of international human rights literature and I was soon to become a frequent visitor. Through more contact with KhPG people, I became curious about the work of the organization. • Continued on next slide…

46. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Two: Your Education/Personal Path • Law example: • Continued from previous slide… • I was especially interested in their work in the field of the freedom of expression and problems of access to official information in Ukraine. In order to gain practical experience I started to work as a volunteer. At that time KhPG was initiating a campaign against unlawful classification of information which is still continuing. It had presented a draft Law on Freedom of information in Ukraine to the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. Being involved in the campaign, talking to prominent national experts on the subject (V. Rechytskiy E. Zakharov, N. Kushakova, R. Romanov, O. Nesterenko), I came to realize how important it is to learn about the legal mechanisms providing the right of access to official information in the United States of America, where these issues are well developed.

47. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Three: Your Professional Project and Professional Needs • This might be the second longest section of the essay; think of it as the background to your statement of purpose: the story of why you want to do the work you want to do.

48. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Three: Your Professional Project and Professional Needs • This might be the second longest section of the essay; think of it as the background to your statement of purpose: the story of why you want to do the work you want to do. • Describe the project you wish to conduct in the U.S. • Avoid looking as if you have dreamed up this project only to win a Fulbright award. Describe the steps you have taken to date to advance the work you would like to do in the U.S. • For example, if you want to study the nutritional needs and benefits of beets, talk about the work you have done with beets.

49. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Three: Your Professional Project and Professional Needs • You will be most convincing if you can make a case that you have exhausted the resources Ukraine offers for completing your task. But be careful – be sure that you HAVE exhausted Ukraine’s resources if you make such a statement . Remember, members of the Review Commission have been chosen because they are respected specialists in your field.

50. Writing a Personal Statement • Section Three: Your Professional Project and Professional Needs • You will be most convincing if you can make a case that you have exhausted the resources Ukraine offers for completing your task. But be careful – be sure that you HAVE exhausted Ukraine’s resources if you make such a statement . Remember, members of the Review Commission have been chosen because they are respected specialists in your field. • In closing, suggest how you think studying in the U.S. might offer you new resources, ideas, contacts, etc., to accomplish your professional goals.